


Four Months, Twenty-One Days, Six Hours and Thirty-Four Minutes

by Karen_Hart



Category: Xenosaga
Genre: Fluff, Multi, Technobabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 19:35:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28943799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karen_Hart/pseuds/Karen_Hart
Summary: Set a few weeks before Episode III. There is a reason KOS-MOS now returns Shion's hugs.
Relationships: Allen Ridgeley/Shion Uzuki, KOS-MOS/Shion Uzuki
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Four Months, Twenty-One Days, Six Hours and Thirty-Four Minutes

**Four Months, Twenty-One Days, Six Hours and Thirty-Four Minutes**

By Karen Hart

The message icon on Allen Ridgeley's desktop kept blinking. He ignored it.

Being chief engineer of a top secret joint government-private sector project wasn't everything he'd imagined it to be. –No. It was exactly what he’d imagined, just more so. It was all the red tape and bureaucracy he'd expected. He just hadn't expected the development team's objectives to keep changing.

It was as though the KOS-MOS Project simply wasn't _allowed_ to be completed. Which was odd as the budget seemed to be drying up. That was usually a death knell for any project.

But right now Allen had more important things to think about.

It had been four months, twenty-one days, six hours and thirty-four minutes since the Chief—the real Chief—had resigned both her job and her position. Aside from a brief note two weeks after her resignation saying she was fine, he hadn't heard much from Shion Uzuki since. He'd sent her weekly updates on the team’s progress—nothing she wasn't cleared for, of course—but she hadn't responded. Allen was trying very hard not be worried. After all, he was one of a very few who knew why she'd resigned.

The reason behind all these wandering thoughts was simple: he missed Shion.

The team wasn't the same without her, both literally and figuratively. Once she'd left, John Bell had accepted a team leader's position designing new LPS software for Federation ships, Janice Kondo had joined Vector Com and Basil Lawrence had transferred to Second Division. It was as if the Chief had been the glue holding them all together. At least Togashi had stayed. –And Miyuki was still affiliated with the project.

Of course, there was one member of the project who'd never leave.

He opened up the video feed for the AAA-ranked maintenance lab. KOS-MOS's service module sat in the center of the room, almost the only piece of furniture there. For the moment there was no one else present.

In a little over a month, KOS-MOS was due to have her semiannual full systems’ analysis. Allen was planning to try very hard to get Shion Uzuki to attend as a special observer. He'd even asked for time off in case he needed to go to Second Miltia and beg her to come in person.

He could only hope.

Before that, however, he had an important project to complete.

For the most part KOS-MOS's anti-Gnosis combat algorithms were operating smoothly. Right now what Allen was concerned about was her ability to interact with people outside of Vector—without Shion present. She'd once threatened to space the crew of a small passenger-cargo freighter if they didn't follow her instructions. Who knew what would have happened if that same ship hadn't received their own distress signal? Fortunately none of that crew had been thrown overboard and in fact had become good friends. Still, he wasn't sure how KOS-MOS would act around others without the Chief around to moderate her behavior.

He opened up LEXIE—the Localized Experimental Interactive Engine—and accessed KOS-MOS's interpersonal relationship software.

There'd been talk, most likely wishful thinking, that the reason for the diminishing budget was that a downscaled version of KOS-MOS was about to be approved for deployment on civilian vessels. So her behavior mattered, and it gave Allen an excuse for the algorithm he was writing.

Humans tended to communicate by touch nearly as much as they did by speaking. Often people would express an idea they couldn't fully communicate verbally with a handclasp, or a squeeze of the shoulder—or an embrace.

He'd already completed most of the programming to be used by her actuator, the problem was establishing certain actions as necessary. _I will emit an expression only when that response is deemed necessary_ , KOS-MOS had said nearly a year ago. Would she accept ‘it would make Shion happy' as sufficient reasoning? Well, perhaps. He factored it in, just in case.

It couldn't have been a pleasant four-plus months for the Chief, not if she wasn't responding to his updates, and Allen made sure that he limited his attempts to contact her so her reticence was unlikely to stem from oversaturation. He was getting worried.

She _had_ to attend the analysis, even if nagging at her to come meant risking her ire. And Allen was determined that when she came she’d receive a hug from KOS-MOS.

**Author's Note:**

> When I was writing this, the first time I typed Shion's name Word suggested I follow it up with "Ridgeley." Even MS Word approves of this pairing.


End file.
